20. Twenty

The downpour of rainbow-touched water fell mutely. Ryurikov’s ears pounded with the rush of blood, the ache in his face nothing compared to the throttlehold anguish had on him. His mouth was dry, it had been hanging open for too long, trying to form a response. In a limbo of wanting to wail and shout with anger, Ryurikov didn’t move while Awimak’s significant form lowered by him.

Fiery eyes looked at him. His breath hiked, a sob threatening to spill free. Ryurikov’s fist clenched around the haft of his dagger without command. He staggered upright and glanced around, overwhelmed. Helpless. His free hand closed around the other dagger.

He needed to kill something.

Skin Crawlers were only a few jumps down. Ryurikov made to move, but thick arms swiftly encased him.

“Release me.”

He’d be more careful this time, probably. Now knowing what to expect, he could kill them all. He had to kill them all. It wouldn’t bring anyone back, but—Ryurikov shook his head, he tried to move again. Awimak held him tight, and he pushed back against the embrace.

“Let me go!” His voice broke. Fuck.

NOT THIS TIME, RYURIKOV.

“Awimak!”

At some point, he’d dropped the daggers to slam his fists against the massive chest, fighting to get free, to get away before, before—

A sharp burn grasped his lungs, pressed up into his throat. His eyes stung, his vision became nebulous. Awimak’s hold on him didn’t relent, only tightened, the ululating cry that wrenched itself free at last twisted Ryurikov’s whole body.

He wanted to scream that he hadn’t known, but he couldn’t say that.

Because he had known.

Waking up in a foreign bed in a modest hut, in hellish pain and covered by dressing, he’d panicked and escaped. He’d seen it then, from a distance. The fires consuming what was once an unyielding castle, turning grey stone into bright orange. Few could have survived that. An understanding he pushed into the back of his mind, locking it away. Allowing himself to forget with each rapid step he’d taken to flee the lands.

But he’d never truly forgotten. The terrible knowledge that he’d doomed everyone had always been there, lurking in his subconscious, telling Awimak what Ryurikov refused to face.

There was no choice but to face it now, and it cracked his chest all the way open. It tore out his heart, his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. His face throbbed, pressed against a cool chest as large hands stroked over his back. Comforting him. Ryurikov clung on, his fingers digging into chilled skin, a feeble attempt to control the onslaught of sorrow threatening to break him entirely.

Gelid stone connected with his backside. Ryurikov’s quivering inhale echoed, and he blinked, furiously, to try and clear his vision. He’d ended up inside a cave, brightly lit by sunlight pouring in from above. A brook weaved through rock nearby, eroded over the years. Awimak bent low over it, cupping crystalline fluid into a hand.

Ryurikov flinched, water splashing onto his cheek, but didn’t fight it, too tired to do much else than sit there and let Awimak wash him. His fingers found the fabric around his knees, torn and stained by blood. His weeping had fatigued him, wiped away any upset he might have otherwise felt at the state of his clothes.

More water rinsed away blood. His throat flexed around the need to say he could do this himself, but he ended up croaking, “I don’t deserve it.”

Awimak turned to him from where he knelt by the brook, sun-like eyes desaturated in the light. GUILT WILL ERODE IF YOU ALLOW IT TO MOVE FREELY.

Ryurikov jerked his head, unsure of the meaning.

GUILT DOES NOT SERVE A PURPOSE. IT CORRUPTS THE MIND AND SPIRIT.

“I’m still not sure what you mean.” Fuck, his head hurt on top of everything else.

His demon moved near again, cupping yet more water, holding it up to his face. DRINK.

Ryurikov did as told, setting his lips to the claw and sipping. So crisp, it hurt his parched throat. He struggled to swallow.

ONCE YOU ALLOW GUILT TO CONSUME ONE PART OF YOU, IT WILL TRICKLE INTO ALL OTHER PARTS.Awimak ran a dampened palm over his back, sitting beside him. THEN, IT WILL LEAD YOU TO BELIEVE THINGS THAT ARE NO LONGER TRUE.

“Meaning?”

YOU ARE AS GUILTY OF WHAT HAPPENED AS THE STONE WE SIT UPON.

Ryurikov snorted and instantly regretted it. He settled his throbbing head in his hands and didn’t resist when Awimak’s arm came around his shoulders to pull him close. His side was brisk, allowing Ryurikov to root himself.

“You’re forgetting that every trickle has a source, and that source is as surely water as the brooks that branch off it.”

MEANING?

“I’m guilty of one thing, everything else that follows is also my fault.”

I DID NOT REALISE YOU WERE ALL-POWERFUL. HAVE I MET MY MATCH AT LAST?

Ryurikov glanced up, brows furrowing with the beginnings of vexation.

THE SKIN CRAWLERS WOULD HAVE EMERGED SOONER OR LATER, RYURIKOV, AND WOULD HAVE DONE SO WITHIN YOUR KINGDOM REGARDLESS.

“Doesn’t change that I should have…” Warned others. Tried to get his cousins out instead of only Valka. The thought worked to undo him again. He clutched at the torn surcoat, wishing he could up the ache inside him to toss it away.

YOU OVERESTIMATE YOUR ABILITY.

“Fuck, Awimak,” he ground out. “Not now. My head hurts too much for this.”

IF YOU HAD BEEN ABLE TO WARN OTHERS WHILE IGNITED, THAT WOULD HAVE INDEED MADE YOU ALL POWERFUL.

“Fuck you.”

THAT IS BETTER.

A massive claw came to rest atop his head, and Ryurikov relished in its coolness. “Didn’t you say their entire presence is my fault?”

Balefully, he glanced up from under long fingers, but Awimak did not provide him with an answer because it was obvious. Awimak had only been reflecting his own thoughts, locked away in his subconscious.

He sighed and succeeded in not melting under the thumb stroking across his hair. He hated feeling…whatever the fuck made him want to weep and cling to Awimak until things were better. It was awful. He longed to get rid of it. Would Awimak let him kill things yet?

“Now what?” he asked in a mutter.

“You get the hell off my mountain.”

Tension snagged his shoulders and pulled him upright. He faced Valka, her anger still past boiling point, fingers clenched around that flute. Ryurikov would have answered, but shadowy shapes flitting across her jerkin, the pattern of its fabric looking an awful lot like a stained glass window, caught his focus. At the sight of three birds vanishing into the distance of a blue patch, he reeled.

The fucking doves in Jezibaba’s window.

“How long?” Ryurikov asked hoarsely.

Valka wrenched her gaze off Awimak and to him. “What?”

“How long—” He’d raised his voice without meaning to, paused, and tried again. “How long have you and that fucking hag been communicating?”

She looked at him, hazel eyes cold. “I owe you no answers.”

DESPITE WHAT YOU HAVE TOLD YOURSELF, YOU OWE YOUR brOTHER MORE THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO UNDERSTAND, Awimak said, a fierce anger haunting his snarl. The kind of anger that was protective, and hell, it was unnerving.

Ryurikov couldn’t remember the last time anyone was angry on his behalf.

Valka visibly bristled. Her mouth moved and twitched the way it always did while she mulled her choices. He didn’t think she would give him an answer, yet she said, “A little before the second time she killed you.”

The doves had flown off the moment he’d set foot into the room with the mirror, Ryurikov remembered. Had they gone to tell Valka of his presence?

“And just what were you two talking about?” he asked, then realised he knew the answer to that.

Valka harrumphed and turned to one of the yellow drakes tugging at her breeches with thick claws, Ryurikov muttered, “The contest was your idea.” It fit, when that hadn’t seemed like Jezibaba’s style. “You and the hag planned to get me captured and boiled.”

He couldn’t quite keep the heartbreak out of his voice, and longed to curse loud enough to bring the cave crumbling down on them. Feelings were the fucking worst. He needed to leave. Needed to work on putting all those shitty emotions away, deep where they couldn’t resurface again.

“I really thought Vasili would be better than he turned out to be.” Valka glanced at the piece of parchment the drake handed her. “But, you’ve always been a slippery dick.”

Ryurikov worked his jaw, fighting to suppress the awful stinging in his heart. He wasn’t the best at thinking things through, he’d not set any expectations for when he finally found Valka, but being this complete mess of hurt had not been part of his half-assed plan.

He mustered the coldest look he could, then walked past Awimak, his footsteps inaudible over the brook and purling cascades.

The drakes had resumed their studies, lost among the flowers but for their metallic scales glinting sharply in the sunlight. He wondered from where they got their claws on parchment and ink, while he looked out across the horizon. The pall of smoke below kept him from seeing anything but. At the sound of hooves, he turned to witness Awimak’s eyes blazing.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Ryurikov admitted.

COMPASSION, PERHAPS, FROM SOMEONE WHOM YOU TRIED TO SHIELD ALL HER LIFE.

It wasn’t even a question. When he said nothing in response, only frowned, Awimak positioned himself beside him. Together, they overlooked the scenery, or lack thereof.

WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW?

“Get some new clothes, I suppose.” Ryurikov picked at loose threads on his sleeve, chest twisting with loss.

FOR WHAT IT COUNTS, I PREFER YOU IN GREEN.

A weak laugh whisked past Ryurikov’s lips, and Awimak gathered his hand in a claw, so massive compared to his own. His gloves too were ruined, blood streaking brown leather, still wet and glistening. Awimak glanced down at him, likely expecting him to pull his hand free. Out of habit, Ryurikov wanted to. He’d become too accustomed to shying away from anything resembling affection, and holding anyone’s hand was new to him entirely.

He didn’t hate it.

The way down was decidedly easier than up. After finding his daggers for him, Awimak insisted he sit on his shoulders. Ryurikov wasn’t opposed. The day had caught up to him, he was exhausted. Idly, he played with the roughened texture of the horns, squinting against the smoke drifting around the mountain’s side. They had descended another way to avoid the wasteland, edging its outskirts once reaching the bottom. He held on tight when Awimak nearly toppled over loose stone before they reached level ground.

“Steady on,” he murmured, patting the skull.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO WORRY, MY DRURY. I WON’T EVER DROP YOU.

Ryurikov hummed. Low flames inched across fresh grass, leaving nothing but scorched earth in its wake. Like flattened waves, the spread wasn’t linear, making its way to a town that didn’t seem to have suffered fire damage. Steeply pitched gable roofs and half-timbering homes were only faintly visible behind a thin wall of briar and, more peculiarly, a barrier of what appeared to be rain. Only, it moved from the ground up to disappear into the smoke shrouding the sky, barely allowing sunlight to filter through. It cast all in a disconcerting amber hue.

Soldiers clad in black and ebony chain-mail occupied the line behind the barrier, casting him wary looks. Ryurikov had descended Awimak, unsure if he’d appear to be floating otherwise, and reached out to touch the barrier by the entrance of the town.

“Don’t touch it!”

He really wanted to touch it now. “How am I supposed to get through?”

A soldier came to him, her glare blurred behind ascending droplets. “State your business!”

Ryurikov sneered. “Trading.”

“It’s you!” A man scampered to stand beside the soldier, clad in a black robe featuring embroidery of some intricate image on his chest.

IT IS THE MIATHOS MONK.

Oh. He’d not even recognised him, despite the bald head.

“Good afternoon.” Ryurikov glanced up. “I think.”

“Let him through, let him through!”

A wave of the accosting guard was all it took for the rain to part like curtains, upside down droplets splashing into others, forming wobbly globules. Ryurikov lingered long enough for Awimak to go first before following. He had to suppress a smile at the sight of his demon towering imposingly above the soldier and the monk. Those idiots had no idea.

The monk scurried to Ryurikov’s side, grabbing his arm without permission. He tried to yank it free, but the hold was surprisingly firm, held against the shorter man’s chest as he guided him along the path and across an arched bridge that had seen better days. A wall of briar surrounded the other side of the stream, the water below restless with minktoads, their glowing eyes peering out from beneath mushroom caps, furry bellies extending with each shrill chirp.

“We have plenty of food and drink, and perhaps a bath?” the monk said, dragging him along.

Ryurikov cast a look at Awimak on the other side and silently formed the words, “Kill him.” His demon chuckled, but did not murder. Damn him.

“That sounds fine,” he said at length.

The town itself was mostly unscathed and despite the suffocating smoke, busy with traders and open shops. There was a tavern Ryurikov wanted to dive into, but that monk still had an intense hold on him.

“Release my arm or lose both of yours, monk,” he snapped.

The monk immediately let go, looking flustered. “My apologies! I mean well. Come this way.”

Ryurikov stopped by the tavern, its front covered by thick branches, blossoms cascading in white obscuring the sign. Although he thought he saw the word “Ancient” peer through.

“A fine tavern yes, but I offer the best!”

“You just want more coin.” Ryurikov glared in warning when the monk tried to touch his arm again.

“Well, yes! You did seem to have plenty to spare.”

At least he was honest.

“Alright, then.”

“What brings you to Briarmour, my kind sir?”

Ryurikov sighed. “I just want something to eat. I’d like to bathe, and then sleep. No talking.”

“Of course, of course!”

Briarmour was only a modest town, yet had too many homeless subjects hiding within its alleyways. The sight of their starved faces strangled Ryurikov’s heart. He needed to look away, to pretend he saw nothing.

It took a while to reach what appeared to be the Jarl’s palace. As far as palaces went, it was humble, but unmistakable in its opulence. That fucking figured. Ryurikov clenched his teeth, rage bubbling to the surface, barely subdued by Awimak settling a claw across his shoulder and squeezing.

“Why did you bring me here, monk?” he demanded, ascending wide steps to large doors.

The balding man turned to him, cheeks rosy and mouth stretched in a grin. “Yavor Hospod, sir. Because you are officially a special guest!”

Ryurikov spun on his heel and stalked off. “Not today, fuck-rag.”

His face still throbbed. Every bite he’d endured stung like wounds suffused in salt. He wasn’t in the mood for whatever nasty surprises lurked inside. He had enough of those to last him a lifetime.

“Wait, please!” Yavor called. “I promise comfort and great food!”

I CANNOT SENSE A THREAT, IF THAT WILL PUT YOU AT EASE, said Awimak behind him.

Ryurikov stopped in his tracks, turning to face the edifice again, looking at the trailing ivy as though it would tell him Awimak was right. Just because he couldn’t sense anything didn’t mean there was no risk. On the other hand, it would accommodate his demon better than any tavern and, truthfully, Ryurikov longed to have Awimak with him.

With a sigh, he strode back to Yavor, who broke out into another grin and scampered up the steps.

The door was heavy, groaning low on its hinges. Smoke had permeated every inch of the town, the air stuffy even inside. Silver carpets and inky wood lavished the interior. Corners featured tall bears the Jarl must have hunted, and walls held the heads of deer and boars.

Awimak released an unhappy snarl beside him. KILLING ANIMALS TO FEATURE THEIR MANGLED REMAINS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A PORTRAYAL OF CRUELTY.

Ryurikov considered this, but didn’t respond. The Maksim castle had been full of those things, he’d gotten used to them.

“The Jarl will be most pleased to greet you!”

“Why have your robes changed?” asked Ryurikov, idly.

“Oh, I no longer worship Miathos.” Yavor halted in a generous hallway to beam up at him. “Goreldion, now and forever!”

“The god of black stone?” Ryurikov’s brows drew together, his gaze lowering to the monk’s chest. The silver embroidery featured a stylised hooded figure juggling six stones. “Why?”

Yavor gestured at the floor. “We return to the earth, transformed into the very stone the foundation Vale is made of. Whyever wouldn’t I worship Goreldion?”

DOES HE NOT REALISE GORELDION REPRESENTS PLAGUE AND DEATH?

Ryurikov snorted in amusement.

“Not a man of faith, I gather?”

“Only when it suits me.”

An open space greeted them, with a large firepit at its centre and a throne in the back. A servant clad in black sat turning a swine on the spit, its fat dripping down into flames and sizzling. It smelled fucking fantastic. Ryurikov’s stomach took that opportunity to rumble with hunger.

Although he was more than ready to sink his teeth into the pig, Yavor led him around the firepit and to the throne. A long-bearded man occupied it, legs spread so wide his ballsack should have split. He too wore black, as did the young women flanking him on either side. His daughters, presumably. Six in total, each on their own ornate throne.

“Who do you bring to me, Hospod?”

“The very man who has made me see reason and join you, lord Blann!”

No sooner had the words begun to echo than Ryurikov groaned. Fucking damn it, he’d walked into a sect of some sort.

“Last time I take your word for it,” he grumbled to Awimak under his breath.

“Well then, I welcome you, sir…?”

Ryurikov cleared his throat, casting for a name. “Dracus.”

The Jarl’s dark brows lifted. “Sir Dracus. A friend of Hospod is a friend of mine. Please, make yourself at home.”

He would have responded with, “No, thanks,” but Yavor beckoned him to sit by the firepit. Okay, fine. Fuck. He was hungry. He’d fill his stomach and go. With a tired exhale, he lowered himself onto a bench and watched the monk pry off a sizeable chunk of pig to slap onto a silver plate. Awimak sat beside him, the wood creaking with complaint. Ryurikov wondered what would happen should someone choose to sit in that exact spot.

“You look like you’ve seen better days.”

Ryurikov stiffened. The Jarl had come up behind him, moving to straddle the bench on the other side, steely grey eyes boring into the side of his face.

“It hasn’t been the best, today.”

The Jarl tutted. “How do you like my barrier?”

“Barrier?”

For some reason, his ignorance amused the Jarl.

“The one surrounding Briarmour!” said Yavor, handing him a plate laden with meat. “A miracle, truly.”

Ryurikov glanced sideways. “A miracle, or the work of crones?”

“Six crones. Alas, we’re down to four now. We lost two to drowning. The barrier was not easy to craft, and more difficult still to uphold.”

So this man, this Jarl, could afford to keep six witches, while his subjects were without home and food on the streets.

“Is it worth it?” Ryurikov asked, making no effort to keep the disdain out of his tone.

“It’s keeping the ever-consuming fire at bay, so yes.”

That brought him to actually look at the Jarl, even while he bit into the meat, too hot to chew. He sucked in several breaths, trying to speak. The Jarl chuckled, eyes crinkling.

“It has kept this town from burning down for five months now.” He toyed with his thick, long beard, fingers adorned in rings holding sparkling black stones. “We’ve even tried pushing forward and reclaimed some land, but being short on witches, we weren’t able to push for long.”

Ryurikov considered this, astounding information as it was. In mostly a whisper, he said, “We can fight back.”

“That we can.”

He gazed up at Awimak, his heart giving a thud of hope. “We can fight back.”

Awimak was smiling at him, he could feel it. PERHAPS WE CAN.